For the purpose of increasing the speed of the color development step and/or decreasing the quantity of replenisher, methods are being studied for processing color photographic materials having silver chloride emulsions instead of the silver bromide emulsions or silver bromoiodide emulsions that are conventionally in wide use. If the quantity of the replenisher is decreased, or the developing solution is used for a longer period of time, or a large amount of the photographic material is processed continuously, the photographic performance is liable to change, and therefore stable photographic performance cannot be retained.
Although, for example, JP-A ("JP-A" means unexamined published Japanese patent application) No. 106655/1988 and International Publication No. WO 04534/1987 (PCT application) disclose methods that use hydroxylamines as a preservative for color developers and, in particular, for color developers for high-silver-chloride color photographic materials, use of these methods only is not adequate to stabilize color developers.
On the other hand, such an attempt is made that the structure of color-developing tanks is contrived somehow, or a floating lid is used, so as to improve the storage quality of color developers. For example, JP-A Nos. 131138/1988, 216050/1988, and 235940/1988 describe methods wherein the opened surface ratio of the color developer is made small. Although color developers can be made stable against air oxidation when the opened surface ratio of the solution is made smaller, use of this method only is not necessarily satisfactory in suppressing the fluctuation of sensitivity and gradation due to continuous processing.
Thus, improvement is desired with respect to the point that the sensitivity and gradation are liable to fluctuate along with the change of the amount of the processed photographic material as the processing is continued. Further, when the quantity of the replenisher of the developing solution is decreased, it has been found that the stabilization of photographic performance is difficult in high-silver-halide color photographic materials, because the concentration of chloride ions in the developing solution increases.